Spam: we don’t like it in our sandwiches, we don’t like it in our inbox.
We have spam in our work email, our school emails, and our personal emails. We sign up for things and get spam, we don’t sign up for things and we still get spam. We opt-out of emails and we seem to get twice the spam we got before.
Our first code of ethics when running an email campaign must be to avoid adding any more spam to the world. Instead, we should be providing real value to our audience before asking them for the sale. We want to help our audience, not just take their money. We want to make a difference, not just charge credit cards. As professionals, we want relationships with our customers and audience and they want that too.
Whether they’re paying for our products or services right now doesn’t matter. Our customers and potential customers both have problems and questions and we don’t have to do much to answer and address their concerns.
There are a few ways to produce meaningful email campaigns that people will value and that might even persuade them to investigate your company more.
1. Newsletters
This is where you will speak to your audience one on one. You’re going to tell them how excited you are about a new employee or service. You’re going to notify your readers about how sad you are about a worker retiring after 20 years and how proud you are about a finished project or improved product designs. You can announce new logos and brands. You can even push to drive traffic to your social media pages and your website. You can even manipulate your emails to ask your audience for reviews or input to drive consumer-driven content which can be beneficial for many reasons.
2. News
Are you a data firm? A researcher? A lawyer or medical professional? Your audience trusts you, so why don’t you help them stay informed with new medicines, treatments, laws, statistics, and discoveries that they care about. They care about you and your company so you can bet they care about what is happening in your industry, so build that relationship and help them out. You can always sneak in a “call to action” for whatever purpose you want.
3. Tools
Are you a B2B business that provides accounting, technological, or process flow solutions to your clients? Do you have a new e-book or some free PDF files that your audience could use to improve their business? Send them to your audience, maybe ask them for their phone numbers in exchange for a free tool so you can call them later and offer them your services.
4. Deals and Coupons
Everyone loves a good deal! Do you have a new promotion or referral program? How about a holiday sale? Well no one is going to use that incentive if they don’t know about them, an email campaign is one way of doing that. These are just a few ways you can use email marketing for your marketing plan and avoid being another one of those pesky spammers that are always chasing after our money and never offering any help or advice first. If you and your company are interested in email marketing or similar solutions, please give us a call to schedule a free consultation at 760-723-7319.
